Revise GCSE Physics

The wavelength of visible light is so small that diffraction effects are almost undetectable, but it does still happen and causes problems for cameras trying to take detailed images with the aperture nearly shut.

The smaller the aperture, the greater the diffraction effect.

The aperture is just another word for the opening in the camera lens that the light passes through. In higher quality cameras the size of the aperture can be changed to improve picture quality.

This image shows the effect of diffraction on a single point light caused by reducing the size of the aperture on a camera lens.